The Future Freaks Me Out

In the following excerpt from Elizabeth Bishop’s “Questions of Travel,” the speaker questions the experience of growing older and the implications of aging and perhaps maturing:

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams

hurry too rapidly down to the sea,

and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops

makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,

turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.

–For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,

aren’t waterfalls yet,

in a quick age or so, as ages go here,

they probably will be.

But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,

the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,

slime-hung and barnacled.

 

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

in this strangest of theatres?

What childishness is it that while there’s a breath of life

in our bodies, we are determined to rush

to see the sun the other way around?

The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?

To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,

inexplicable and impenetrable,

at any view,

instantly seen and always, always delightful?

Oh, must we dream our dreams

and have them, too?

And have we room

for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

 

My birthday was last Tuesday, April 5th. And while I’m still accepting belated birthday wishes, the subject of getting older has been on my mind lately– and not necessarily in a good way.

I really like the line in the poem that says, “What childishness is it that while there’s a breath of life/ in our bodies, we are determined to rush/ to see the sun the other way around?” I love discussing the concept of being a child, and how innocent and hopeful children are. I’ve been thinking a lot about that thing adults always say. They tell you you’re always in a rush to grow up and then you do and you wish you were young again. I think that is what the line from the poem is saying.

I finally turned 21. Yes, this means I can legally go out and drink for the first time in my life. The fact of drinking legally isn’t what is making me feel so weird. The weird part of it all is that I feel like this kind of, sort of, means I’m almost, kind of, an adult. I’m only a junior, so I’m not yet graduating and being shoved into the “real world” yet, but I have to be honest. I’m freaked out.

One reason I am freaked out is because I realized that I’ve been on this world for 21 years and still know so little about everything. If I have not yet cured ugly baby syndrome and figured out if God really exists yet, when will I? In addition, I’ve seen a change in myself. Here’s where the corny part may come in. I am what I like to call a “half-asser.” My whole life, I’ve survived by not really doing much work. I’m the first one to admit that this isn’t a good thing and makes me sound like a bitch, but it’s the truth. I hardly studied for the SATs, I applied to two colleges, I partied a lot, and I am a very lazy individual.

"What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around?"| Photo courtesy of Lyssa Goldberg

Since getting to BU, I’ve seen myself grow and change. At first I hated this change.  The angsty high school girl inside of me who wears too much eyeliner was screaming. “What are you doing you conformist? Stop caring about the future and live for the now!” Part of me is still like this. I still believe, as I’ve written before, that  stressing to complete some arbitrary goal is meaningless, especially when life could be cut short at any moment. I’ve watched myself as I go to class wearing a heavy backpack and go to work and do homework and apply for internships and actually sometimes enjoy learning and participating in school, if only a little bit. Sometimes I look down on myself and don’t recognize the almost responsible person I’ve become. Sometimes I feel like the speaker of the poem, “watching strangers in a play/in this strangest of theatres,” except I’m one of the strangers.

It’s freaky and weird and strange to watch this; it’s like I’m actually making my parents happy or something. I’ve somehow survived teenage hormones and hating the world and have emerged as someone who, well, still hates a lot of people and things, but maybe just a little less.

 

 

About Lyssa Goldberg

Lyssa Goldberg is a junior at Boston University majoring in magazine journalism, with a minor in psychology and being a sarcastic Long Islander. She joined the Quad with the intention of introducing poetry in a way that could be relatable to the Boston University student population, and has trying to do that (plus share some thoughts on life) ever since.

View all posts by Lyssa Goldberg →

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